After riding home in Chen Song's car, Yu Hai immediately ordered takeout.
While waiting for the food to arrive, he opened the email Old Xu had sent him.
Xie Yun was currently a rather prominent director domestically, and also enjoyed a considerable international reputation.
In this world, Huaxia stood as the world's leading superpower, and its cultural output to other nations was crushing in its dominance. Many top-tier major directors domestically were leading figures globally.
Xie Yun primarily directed martial arts films, and his latest project, titled *Marching to War*, centered on a swordsman who vowed to make a name for himself in the martial world, only to end up reduced to a prisoner through a series of misadventures. After being rescued by a friend, he discovered that his hometown had fallen and all his family members had perished. Filled with fury, he enlisted in the military and ultimately died on the battlefield.
The request Xie Yun had put to Yu Hai was for a poem that captured the protagonist's frame of mind out on the battlefield.
After some thought, Yu Hai finally selected "Liangzhou Ci" by the Tang dynasty poet Wang Han:
*Glittering wine of grapes sparkling in night-glow cups,*
*About to drink when the pipa urges us to mount our steeds.*
*Do not mock those who fall drunkenly on the battlefield—*
*Since ancient times, how many men ever return from war?*
This poem should be able to meet the other's requirements.
Transcribing the poem, Yu Hai snapped a photo of it and sent it directly to the director's email address. He didn't mention anything about payment or the like. He trusted that if the other party was satisfied, the compensation wouldn't be stingy.
Task done. Just in time, the delivery arrived; dinner was dry-pot bullfrog and barbecue. Because Yu Hai wanted to eat both and couldn't decide between them, he had ordered from two different places. If not for the existence of the Beauty Fruit, his dietary habits would have seen him puff up like a pufferfish sooner rather than later—the angry kind.
When Xie Yun received Yu Hai's email, he was discussing film promotional matters with several key creators. The movie's theme song had actually been decided quite some time ago, with the music composed by the well-known domestic Grandmaster Composer Lin Wenze. Xie Yun was very satisfied and planned to edit a preview of over four minutes, set to the theme song, for release. However, the team was having trouble deciding which clips to use in the trailer.
Right in the middle of their heated discussion, the chime of a new email sounded from Xie Yun's inbox. He casually clicked it open and glanced at the screen.
On a sheet of pristine A4 paper, four lines of neat and tidy handwriting penned in fountain pen stood out brightly.
Xie Yun subconsciously read the words aloud: *"Glittering wine of grapes sparkling in night-glow cups, about to drink when the pipa urges us to mount our steeds. Do not mock those who fall drunkenly on the battlefield—since ancient times, how many men ever return from war?"*
By the time he finished reading the poem and was marveling at the boldness and heroic spirit contained within the verses, he realized that the surrounding discussion had long since ceased. Everyone was staring straight at him.
In their eyes were awe and pleasant surprise, as well as bewilderment and confusion.
The screenwriter, Liang Weidong, stepped right up to him and stared at the poem on the screen, his eyes brimming with deep appreciation, wonder, and admiration.
"What a good poem! It's written so well."
Seeing this, the others crowded around as well, marveling while asking questions: "Old Xie, where did you get this poem?"
"Who wrote it? Let me see."
"This poem fits the mood of our movie so well, especially near the end!"
"I suddenly have a brilliant idea!"
"What if we put this poem in the trailer, matched with Teacher Lin's music..."
The editor's words made everyone's eyes light up.
Just as Yu Hai finished his evening meal, he received a reply from Director Xie Yun. The tone was very polite, and the general message was: he was extremely satisfied with the poem sent over, he deeply admired Whale Fall's talent, the writing fee would not be meager, and there would be opportunities for future collaboration.
This famous director seemed to have a rather pleasant personality, Yu Hai thought to himself; he could find time to go watch one of his movies.
After eating, he lay on the sofa and spaced out for a while. Then Yu Hai went into the study, ready to do some reading.
A lot of what he read consisted of history books.
The history of this parallel world differed greatly from Earth's. Even though Yu Hai had inherited the memories of the original host, because of the disparities between the two time-and-space dimensions, he still often got things confused. Fortunately, when he crossed over, the system had sealed away most of his memories of Earth to protect him. To avoid being labeled an uneducated illiterate in the future, Yu Hai had no choice but to study hard and pose as a native.
The Huaxia of this parallel world was the world's premier superpower, and Mandarin was the primary language of communication across the globe.
Such formidable national strength made Huaxia's cultural output exceptionally exaggerated. Studying Huaxia's history was an extremely popular subject in most countries around the world. Over five thousand years of turbulent history was enough to captivate many people for a lifetime. If Yu Hai's historical knowledge didn't even match a foreigner's, it would be far too embarrassing.
The book he was reading at the moment was about the history of the Qin dynasty in this world.
The descriptions regarding the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the parallel world's Huaxia were actually quite similar to Earth's. The major historical divergence seemingly began with the Qin dynasty.
The Qin, Han, Tang, Zhou, Yuan, and Ming dynasties still existed, but many things were different. For instance, the Second Emperor of Qin was Fusu, not Huhai; the Li-Tang dynasty ceased to exist after Wu Zetian; and while the Great Ming dynasty encountered crises, it successfully persevered and endured as the final feudal dynasty in Huaxia's history.
In the late late-Ming period, a group of visionary and brilliant figures carried out sweeping reforms across the lands of Huaxia. Consequently, many of the poems, songs, and historical figures so familiar to the Yu Hai of Earth did not exist here, replaced instead by an entirely different batch of classics.
Of course, quite a few works still existed, such as *The Analects* and *Journey to the West*.
After experiencing a very brief period of painful trials, this oriental dragon soared directly into the skies, and from then on, no one could ever halt Huaxia's dominance.
The next day, Yu Hai officially began work at Xinhai Music.
Sitting at his desk, he turned on the company computer and began searching for the information he wanted.
He typed in the three characters "Zhou Mingxuan" and hit search.
Up popped the photo of a delicately featured boy with a somewhat shy smile, looking to be about eighteen or nineteen years old. He must be a newly signed trainee at the company. Yu Hai put on his headphones and listened to his voice, discovering to his surprise that the boy's voice differed quite significantly from his appearance.
His voice was relatively deep, with a rich, slightly grainy texture—a voice with a high degree of recognizability. His vocal control was also up to par.
I'll pick him for this project, then.
Yu Hai made his decision.
As for why he chose this person, it was because when Yu Hai arrived at the company today, he had run into this young man on the compound grounds.
The fellow might have just finished breakfast, as he was walking toward the company gates holding an apple in his hand.
Upon seeing Yu Hai, the young man's eyes lit up, though with great restraint, he didn't immediately rush over. Instead, he looked at the apple in his hand, hesitated for a moment, and then walked over, cautiously greeting him and holding out the apple to ask if he wanted to eat it.
The apple looked somewhat tempting, and Yu Hai felt like having some, so he took it and casually asked the boy his name.
The young man stated his name with a smile, didn't linger, and directly walked away.
Later, Yu Hai thought it over and figured the kid must have seen him mingling among that group of trainees the previous day, though he certainly hadn't spoken up to offer him a car ride. As for why? He was definitely too poor to own a car!
Since he had eaten an apple of the kid's, he would just have to let the kid sing a song.
Crunching away happily on the apple, Yu Hai began selecting a song within the system.
By the time the apple was eaten down to the core, the song had been decided.